April 12, 1987
By Helen M. Fagg
Vigo County Historical Society
Creative playthings
A-B-C blocks let child’s mind work
Have you noticed how often groups of ABC building blocks are used in advertising? Can you think of an easier way to spell out a message:
With each generation of children, new toys arrive on the scene and are accepted or rejected. Building blocks in one form or another seem to move easily from one generation to the next and are popular with both boys and girls.
Blocks have one basic purpose and that is to build or create something. No detailed instructions are needed and most children instinctively know how to use them. Blocks stimulate creativity. Their use is limited only by the imagination of the builder.
It is impossible to say just when and where blocks originated. The first ones may have been the ends sawed off and left under the carpenter’s bench. They, along with the curls left by the plane, were picked up and taken to the play area. Cautious or ingenious parents perhaps sanded the ends and added some paint and colored pictures to create a new toy.
Sometime in the early 1800s, picture blocks began to appear in toy markets across America. The first sets were a combination of building pieces and jigsaw puzzle parts. Each block had a section of a larger picture and when the pieces were arranged properly the picture was completed. Since each block had six sides, six complete pictures were possible.
During the late 1800s, sets of building blocks cut in the shape of people and animals were produced by several companies. The most famous was the set of acrobats made by the Crandall Co. They were flat clown-like figures that could be stacked together in a variety of acrobatic poses.
The Elfy blocks made by the Schoenhut Co. of Pennsylvania were similar. This Elfy set consisted of nine blocks cut in the shapes of people and animals with lithographed pictures and large letters on the front and back. The top and bottom both were flat so the blocks easily could be stacked for all kinds of interesting combinations.
The regular alphabet blocks with letters and pictures have been found in toy boxes for well over a century. They were instrumental in teaching children their ABCs and how to use them to spell words even before the term “educational toys” was thought of.
In museums, this type of block is found in several sizes. Some, which are larger, have as many as three letters on each block. Some of the letters were engraved. The pictures were either stamped on or made from colored paper and glued in place.
Robert Culff, in his book, “World of Toys,” describes the beautiful clay building blocks that made their appearance in the late 1800s. The blocks were neatly fitted into a wooden storage box and consisted of many shapes. There were squares, rectangles, circles, arches, triangles and round and square pillars. They came in colors of ochre, cream, russet and slate blue. The blocks had an agreeable odor compounded of linseed oil and wax--one of the evocative smells from childhood that never quite fades from the memory. These blocks were a builder’s treasure.
Today’s children may play with blocks made of a variety of materials, but the basic purpose is the same and that is to create something unique. Combined with odds and ends from the toy box and the cabinet drawers, a child can express his dreams of fantasy castles in his own world.
The block sets in the museum are on display in the general store, the toy shop and the nursery. They are excellent examples from the late-19th and early 20th centuries.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.